International Journal of Quality & Reliability ManagementCommon myths of Six Sigma demystifiedManeesh Kumar, Jiju Antony, Christian N. Madu, Douglas C. Montgomery, Sung H. Park,

Article information:To cite this document:Maneesh Kumar, Jiju Antony, Christian N. Madu, Douglas C. Montgomery, Sung H. Park, (2008) "Commonmyths of Six Sigma demystified", International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 25 Issue:8, pp.878-895, https://doi.org/10.1108/02656710810898658Permanent link to this document:https://doi.org/10.1108/02656710810898658

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Common myths of Six Sigmademystified

Maneesh Kumar and Jiju AntonyDepartment of Design Manufacture and Engineering Management,

Strathclyde Institute for Operations Management, University of Strathclyde,Glasgow, UK

Christian N. MaduDepartment of Management and Management Science,

Lubin School of Business, Pace University, New York, New York, USA

Douglas C. MontgomeryDepartment of Industrial Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe,

Arizona, USA, and

Sung H. ParkDepartment of Statistics, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

Abstract

Purpose – Six Sigma has been part of our business lexicon for more than a decade. Debates on itsemergence as a strategic initiative have created critics who consider it as an old wine in a new bottle. IsSix Sigma a management fad? This article presents some common myths and realities of Six Sigmabusiness strategy. The paper provides an excellent resource for those people who would like to knowwhether Six Sigma is just a management fad or fact.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses some common myths and realities of SixSigma by critically reviewing the existing literature on Six Sigma and also provides a greater insightinto the viewpoints of leading academics and practitioners.

Findings – Six Sigma is neither a fad nor just another quality initiative. It relies on factual datacoupled with hard work and is a disciplined and structured problem-solving methodology. Theauthors strongly argue its integration with other continuous/breakthrough improvement initiatives forsustaining the merits of Six Sigma in the twenty-first century. The paper also elucidates the role ofacademia in further developing and establishing the best practices of Six Sigma management strategy.Six Sigma will evolve over time like many other initiatives – however, the key concepts, the principlesof statistical thinking, tools and techniques of Six Sigma, will stay for many years, irrespective ofwhatever the “next big thing” will be.

Practical implications – In the authors’ opinion, Six Sigma will continue to grow as a powerfulmanagement initiative for achieving and sustaining operational and service excellence. However, whatwill eventually determine whether Six Sigma is viewed by businesses as just a passing managementfad or not, largely depends on the leadership and success of its execution. The authors believe thatorganisations developing and implementing Six Sigma should not view it as an advertising banner forpromotional purposes.

Originality/value – The paper yields a great value to both researchers and practitioners of SixSigma in dispelling the myths of Six Sigma, which have been quite prevalent in the business fraternity.

Keywords Six sigma, Myths, Futures markets, Integration

Paper type Viewpoint

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0265-671X.htm

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Received 5 October 2007Revised 8 January 2008Accepted 8 January 2008

International Journal of Quality &Reliability ManagementVol. 25 No. 8, 2008pp. 878-895q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0265-671XDOI 10.1108/02656710810898658

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IntroductionIn the world of globalisation and growing cut-throat market environment, the quality,skills and knowledge give competitive advantage to any organization. The globalmarket is very competitive, and to survive, organizations need to produce products andservices of high quality to achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty to stimulatetop-line business growth. In an attempt to manage this change, industry leadersembraced Six Sigma business strategy as a framework and solution for pursuingcontinuous improvement in process, customer satisfaction and also organizationalprofit. This approach to reducing defects has made substantial impact on manyorganisations, resulting in enhancement of performance and a vast improvement inbusiness profits, employee morale, quality of products and customer loyalty (Snee,2004; Antony et al., 2005a,b; Kumar et al., 2006a,b; Antony, 2007).

Six Sigma is a well-established approach that seeks to identify and eliminatedefects, mistakes or failures in business processes or systems by focusing on thoseprocess performance characteristics that are of critical importance to customers (Snee,2004). Ever since its conception at Motorola in mid 1980’s, Six Sigma program hasgrown in leaps and bounds worldwide (Antony, 2007; Antony et al., 2005a,b). At thetime of its conception, it was envisioned to be a quality improvement program thatsought to deliver a near-perfect (3.4 defects per million opportunities) quality toMotorola through the use of the DMAIC (define-measure-analyse-improve-control)improvement strategy coupled with the deployment of a structured set of quality tools(Kumar et al., 2006a,b).

With more than two decades of successful implementation of Six Sigmamethodologies at major corporations, the success and benefits possible with SixSigma are well documented. Although Six Sigma initiatives have grown in popularitydue to its highly publicized reports of success, the strategy is not the panacea that someinsist, i.e. Six Sigma still has its limitations. News keeps cropping up about the efficacyof the Six Sigma business strategy from its critics, as a management fad – a fashionthat sweeps the world with great excitement for a brief period of time, usually less thana year, and then disappears (Swinney, 2005). A fad is often characterised as being aninitiative that is adopted widely by companies and often falls from grace when thehope for benefits fail to materialize. Debates on its emergence as a strategic initiativehave created critics who consider it as an old wine in a new bottle. In the last fewdecades, there existed many programs that have purported to be the answer toindustry’s process management problems. These include zero defects, management byobjectives, quality circles, total quality management (TQM) and business processreengineering (BPR) (Marsh, 2000). While these initiatives enjoyed some success, in thelong run most of them were considered as a passing fad by the management and staffof different corporations.

Companies around the world are facing today the harsh realities of a competitiveenvironment. Companies do not have time to wait and bring about evolutionarychanges in their organisation. Instead, they are instituting revolutionary changesmeant to have impact within a very short time frame (Henderson and Evans, 2000). SixSigma can prove to be a powerful strategy for companies to compete globally on thebasis of the quality of product and service rendered to its customers. On the other hand,there are companies that may put their Six Sigma initiatives to a halt if it takes a longtime to realize tangible bottom-line benefits. Thus for them Six Sigma is not their

Common mythsof Six Sigma

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business solution and is just a fad, like many other business improvement initiatives.This article presents some myths and realities of Six Sigma business strategy. Authorsof the article present their viewpoints as why Six Sigma is not a management fad orfantasy and discuss some of the common realities of Six Sigma.

Six Sigma: some myths and realitiesSome common myths of Six SigmaThere is a pervasive perplexity and misinterpretation of what “Six Sigma” is about. Is“Six Sigma initiative” just an old wine in a new bottle, or has it one or more importantlearning points, which should be remembered and practiced (Dahlgaard andDahlgaard-Park, 2006). Is Six Sigma dead, or at least waning in popularity? Is it just a“fad”, which can be ignored like most other fads or should companies begin tounderstand the common realities of Six Sigma. When Six Sigma was introduced tomany organisations, the initial reactions varied from a lot of enthusiasm to an absolutescepticism (Antony, 2004a,b), with the latter mood reflected in comments such as:

. Six Sigma is the flavour of the month. Senapati (2004) perceives Six Sigma as afad with the same tools as employed in many other quality initiatives offered, e.g.total quality management. Authors strongly purport that contemporary industryhas been plagued with an overdose of sick (Six) Sigma, a concept in a newclothing bearing resemblance to statistical process control. Dalgleish (2003)views Six Sigma as another repackaged quality trend that will come and go andis of no help to his company. The author considers Six Sigma as an expensivedistraction that requires paying a consultant to walk into an organisation andteach a selected number of people “the newest best way” of problem solving.

. Six Sigma is all about statistics. There is another common perception that SixSigma focuses on only training in various statistical tools and techniques andalmost ignores the human factor (building of company culture by everybody’sinvolvement and commitment for continuous improvement. This myth derivesfrom the name itself, where sigma represents the standard deviation. Thestatistical terminology “sigma” provides an impression of Six Sigma being astatistics and measurement program.

. Six Sigma is only for manufacturing companies. Six Sigma originated inMotorola in mid 1980’s and was promoted by manufacturing giants like GeneralElectric (GE) and Allied Signal, giving an impression that it can be deployed onlyin manufacturing companies. The most common reason service-orientedorganisations stay away from Six Sigma is that they see it as amanufacturing solution.

. Six Sigma works only in large organisations. As Six Sigma originated in Motorolaand popularised by GE and Allied Signal, it is believed that its application isrestricted to large organisations only because of their endless resources and largeteams. Small companies might have a more difficult time effectivelyimplementing Six Sigma, says Thomas Pyzdek, a Quality Digest columnistand Six Sigma consultant (Dusharme, 2001). Although Six Sigma has beenimplemented with success in many large corporations, there is still lessdocumented evidence of its implementation in smaller organisations.

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. Six Sigma is same as total quality management (TQM). Reed (2000) contends thatthere is nothing at all new about Six Sigma and that it “has been around for manyyears, just called something else”. She goes on to say that Six Sigma “could becalled problem solving, team building, SPC, plan, act, do, check, whatever youwant . . . ”. Six Sigma does employ some of the same tried-and-true tools andtechniques of TQM. Many companies make the mistake of setting up Six Sigma asa quality initiative, putting it in the same category as TQM. “Show me where SixSigma involves anything new”, is a common phrase often said by TQM proponents.Six Sigma has often been referred to as TQM on steroids (Seddon, 2005).

. Six Sigma requires strong infrastructure and massive training. Deploying SixSigma in an organisation requires new skills, and this primarily means trainingthe Black Belts and Green Belts who will guide and manage the improvementprojects and programs. Employees in the small businesses and public sectors areof the opinion that Six Sigma demands massive training costs and additionaleffort (Six Sigma SPC, 2005; Smith, 2005).

. Six Sigma is not cost-effective. This is another common myth prevalent in theindustrial world. It is presumed that deploying Six Sigma requires massiveinvestment with meagre profit or return on investment (ROI). Critics are of theopinion that there are huge risks in heavy investment in this business strategy asit takes a long haul before reaping any tangible benefits (Senapati, 2004).

Myths demystifiedSix Sigma is the flavour of the month. The latest assertion of being a fad or a magic pillto fix organisation’s problems is not what Six Sigma is assumed to be. Let us first havea better picture of how fad has been defined. It is imperative to define the term “fad”before putting forward any statement or assertion of Six Sigma being a fad.

The Chambers Dictionary (2003) defines fad as “a hobby or interest intenselypursued at first, but soon passed over for another”. While there is no standarddefinition of what constitutes a management fad, faddish ideas tend to be simple,prescriptive and transient. They are adopted widely by companies but quickly fallfrom favour when the hoped-for benefits fail to emerge (London, 2003). Theexploitation of the literature on fad started during last two decades when the businessworld was being bombarded with the addition of new management terminology to thebusiness lexicon by different management Guru’s. Hesseling (1984) defined fad as anew popular finding that bursts onto the scene and fades away after a short period oftime. This definition is supported by many researchers in the past who explored thesubject of fads (Eccles and Nohria, 1992; Huczynski, 1993; Abrahamson, 1996; Kieser,1997; Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997).

A fad is not simply good or bad. It is rather a matter of how it is put to use. A fadcan survive and become a “fit” only when the idea from the original fad becomesincorporated into the day-to-day fabric of the organization and affects its overallmanagement system and the work ethics of every employee (Hesseling, 1984). Theconcept of Six Sigma seems to have survived for nearly two decades despite the factthat many reports have classified it as a “management fad” (Snee, 2004; Antony et al.,2005; Kumar et al., 2006a,b; Henderson and Evans, 2000). Stories of success anddramatic improvement in business profitability of many organizations reflect theefficacy of this management strategy and can be considered as a classic example of

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“fit” rather than “fad”. The difference in impact of Six Sigma business strategy is thedegree of discipline in the sequencing and use of tools, upper management activeinvolvement, linkage to strategy, and measurement of results tied to the bottom line.Larry Bossidy, CEO of Allied Signal, imbibed Six Sigma within the organisationalculture and has the following opinion about this business strategy:

The fact is, there is more reality with this than anything that has come down in a long time inbusiness. The more you get involved with it, the more you are convinced (Jones, 1998).

Since its inception in late 1980s, the popularity of Six Sigma has grown by leaps andbounds. Today an internet search will generate hundreds of thousands of hits on SixSigma articles, books, conferences and jobs (Walters, 2005). As quoted by a leadingquality expert: “Six Sigma has been very successful-perhaps the most successfulbusiness improvement strategy of the last 50 years” (Montgomery, 2005). Companiesembracing Six Sigma have witnessed a cultural transformation that affects everyaspect and level of organisations- from shop floor employees to middle managers to toplevel management, and thus transforming companies, people and processes. Six Sigmacan only become a real fit with the normal way of managing a business when the keypersons within the organizations are highly motivated for this to happen.

Six Sigma is all about statistics. Six Sigma utilizes statistics as one of its tools toanalyse, interpret and present data. Organisations require not just statistics to achieveSix Sigma quality level but more importantly requires changes in organisationalculture and commitment from top management permeating the entire organization(Antony et al., 2005a,b; Pande et al., 2000). Six Sigma is more about changing themindset of people, making a shift from a traditional approach of problem solving (i.e.fire fighting) to a proactive approach, based on facts and the correct analysis ofbusiness data for decision-making purposes. The tools and techniques of Six Sigma areused for collecting, analysing, and interpreting data to drive decisions. Computersoftware is available to analyse the data, which can be done by one or two members inthe Six Sigma team, thus speeding up the improvement process. Engineers andmanagers do not need to be experts in statistical methodology. They need to be wise interms of when the use of statistical methodologies can provide more efficient, effectiveinformation on sources of variation in product or process (Sanders and Hild, 2000).

Six Sigma is not just about statistics. The Six Sigma drive for defect reduction,process improvement and customer satisfaction are based on the “statistical thinking”paradigm, a philosophy of action and learning based on process, variation and data.Statistical thinking provides practitioners with the means to view processesholistically. There is a logical thought progression from process-variation-data todefine-measure-analyse-improve-control (DMAIC) (Hare, 2005). This is contrasted withstatistical methods and theories, which are primarily about variation and data and theaggregate of statistical methods themselves (Snee, 2004; Hare, 2005). Examination ofprocess encourages a holistic process view in which the process is first defined usingflow diagrams to provide a common understanding, a key to variation reduction fromthe start. Next, a focus on variation leads to the establishment of systems to measureand analyse variation, and the subsequent focus on data leads to continuousimprovement and holding the gains once attained (Hare, 2005). Statistical thinking,therefore, is fundamental to the methodology because Six Sigma is action-oriented,

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focuses on processes used to serve customers, and defect reduction through variationreduction and improvement goals (Snee, 2004).

Six Sigma is only for manufacturing companies. The relevance of Six Sigma extendsbeyond manufacturing to services, government and public sector, healthcare andnon-profit organizations (Antony et al., 2005a,b; Montgomery, 2005; Pande et al., 2000;Pyzdek, 2003; Breyfogle, 1999). Motorola developed Six Sigma and implemented it firstin manufacturing. From 1990 onwards, they started implementing it to theirnon-manufacturing areas of the company. It was reported at the European QualityForum in Berlin that Motorola managed to save $5.4 billion in non-manufacturingprocesses from 1990 to 1995. According to George (1992):

Improving non-manufacturing processes (or non-primary service processes for servicecompanies) is one of the weakest areas in the quality system of nearly every company.

In terms of expanding the horizons of Six Sigma, the two application areas that seem tobe rising to the top of the heap are healthcare and financial services (Hoerl, 2004). Thepopularity of Six Sigma as a means of improving the quality of service and customersatisfaction is growing exponentially in the last couple of years in the European serviceindustry. Six Sigma offers a disciplined approach to improve service effectiveness (i.e.meeting the desirable attributes of a service) and service efficiency (i.e. time and costs).The objective of a Six Sigma strategy in service processes is to understand how defectsoccur and then to devise process improvements to reduce the occurrence of suchdefects, which improve the overall customer experience and thereby enhance customersatisfaction (Antony, 2004a,b).

GE Capital, the financial division of GE, was one of the first financial institutionsapplying this methodology in order to increase their profitability and customersatisfaction (Antony et al., 2006). After this, various financial institutions and bankshave followed such as Bank of America, Citicorp, American Express, UBS, LloydsTSB, HSBC, Zurich Financial, and Bank One (George, 2003). The first health-careorganization to implement Six Sigma fully into its culture was Commonwealth HealthCorp. (CHC) in partnership with General Electric (Thomerson, 2001). CHC has realizedimprovements in excess of $1.2 million, improved radiology throughput by 33 per centand decreased cost per radiology procedure by 21.5 per cent (Thomerson, 2001).Following CHC, many health-care organizations embraced the Six Sigma challengewithin their processes, examples include Mount Carmel Medical Centre (ColumbusOhio), Charleston Area Medical Centre (WV), Palomar Pomerado Health (San Diego,California), the University of Michigan Medical Center, and Wellmark Blue Cross BlueShield (CA), to name a few (Sehwail and DeYong, 2003).

Experts agree that the most common reason service-oriented organisations stayaway from Six Sigma is that they see it as a manufacturing solution. One of the majorhurdles service-oriented organisations must overcome is the notion that, because theircompany is human-driven, there are no defects to measure. This is wrong, say theexperts (Antony et al., 2007a,b).

It is quite a common view among many people engaged in service organisationsthat Six Sigma requires complicated statistical tools and techniques. The truth is thatSix Sigma is not about a collection of statistical tools and techniques. In fact, serviceorganisations do not simply need many of the tools and techniques of the Six Sigmatoolbox. The majority of the process and quality related problems in service

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organisations can be readily tackled using the simple problem-solving tools of SixSigma such as process mapping, cause and effect analysis, Pareto analysis, controlcharts and so on.

Six Sigma works only in large organisations. It is a myth that Six Sigma works onlyin large companies. GE treated its business as many small business units integratedtogether. Six Sigma is about problem solving, and problems are everywhere. It does notmatter what type or size of business this problem solving methodology is applied to.You might be a wholesaler, a retailer, a manufacturer, or a service organisation. Nomatter whether it is a 300 employee company or a ten employee family business, SixSigma will work as long as you follow the process effectively (Brue, 2006).

Six Sigma has evolved into a business strategy in many large organisations and itsimportance in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is growing everydaybecause of the growing significance of supply chain issues (Antony et al., 2005a,b,2007). A recent study has revealed that strong leadership and undying commitmentfrom top-level management are critical to the success of Six Sigma (Kumar et al., 2008).This study clearly indicates that there are significant differences in the performance ofSix Sigma against non-Six Sigma SMEs.

Taking into consideration of the problem complexity and resources limitation, theSMEs do not require an extensive role system where Master Black Belts, Black Beltsare involved in projects as are applied to large organizations (Kumar et al., 2006a,b). Itis highly advisable in the authors’ opinion to develop a White Belt system for SMEsinstead of heavily investing in Black Belt system. The White Belt definition providedby Harry and Crawford (2005) is not realistic and achievable. Twelve projects in a yearfor a White Belt are too ambitious. We suggest that the White Belts may carry outbetween six to eight process or quality improvement related projects using the DMAICmethodology. The expected savings from a white belt project can be around £5,000 perproject. In our opinion, a company of size 100 should plan for about ten to 15 whitebelts, trained for a week on basic Six Sigma methodology.

Snee and Hoerl (2003) argue that there is nothing inherent in Six Sigma that makesit more suitable for large companies. They also suggest that the greatest barrier toimplementation in small companies to date has been the way the major Six Sigmatraining providers have structured their offerings. More recently, as more and moresets of deployment guides and training materials have become available, the pricingstructures have begun to change. Further, excellent on-line self-paced Six Sigmatraining from authoritative sources at reasonable costs is becoming widely available.This is a very good way for smaller organizations to start a six sigma training activity.It is also possible for SMEs to obtain good external resources through collaborationwith local universities. For example, the Centre for Research in Six Sigma and ProcessImprovement (CRISSPI) at Glasgow Caledonian University provides yellow belt andwhite belt training to SMEs in UK at a competitive price and through rigorous researchand case studies. Arizona State University provides green belt and black belt trainingin both live classroom and internet class formats.

No doubt deploying Six Sigma will cost organization some money and time, but itwill be worth expending time, money and effort to achieve real measurable financialresults. Organizations face myriad of problems in their day-to-day functions. Six Sigmacan be applied where there is a problem, irrespective of type or size of business (Brue,2006). Six Sigma can act as a catalyst for changing SMEs in the quest for business

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excellence by mobilising their intellectual capital, provided there is total commitment.In order to assist SMEs with the implementation of Six Sigma, the authors arerecommending a Six Sigma user group (SSUG) to share and exchange experiences ofsuccessful Six Sigma projects within SMEs as well as with similar companies, whichembark on Six Sigma programme. Six Sigma will facilitate the SMEs, like largeorganizations, to support their organizations’ strategic direction and increasing theneeds for coaching, mentoring and training.

Six Sigma is the same as TQM. It is often said by engineers and managers in smalland big companies that there is nothing really new in Six Sigma compared to otherquality initiatives witnessed in the past (Antony, 2004a,b). Companies that haveembraced Six Sigma within their working culture previously made improvementsthrough the use of TQM or Crosby’s Zero Defects or Quality Circles (Walters, 2005).However, these programs obviously did not address all of their needs. Otherwise thesesame organisations would not be spending additional time and money to implementSix Sigma. Deming, one of the quality Gurus of the 20th century, argued that TQM isterminologically vague, stating:

. . . the trouble with total quality management, the failure of TQM, you can call it, is that thereis no such thing. It is a buzzword. I have never used the term, as it carries no meaning(Deming, 1994).

The CEO of 3M, Chris Galvin, believes Six Sigma has changed their way of doingbusiness:

Six Sigma is not a program or an initiative. It is our game plan. It will challenge all of us, as acompany and in collaboration with our customers, to be the very best. Motorola was open tosharing the risk, which allowed us to develop an outstanding partnership (McShea et al., 2004).

There are three aspects of the Six Sigma strategy that are not emphasised in total qualitymanagement (TQM). First of all, Six Sigma is result-oriented and therefore places a clearfocus on bottom-line business impact in hard dollar savings. No Six Sigma project will beapproved unless the team determines the savings generated from it. Second, Six Sigmamethodology DMAIC links the tools and techniques in a sequential manner. Finally, SixSigma creates a powerful infrastructure for training of Champions, Master Black Belts,Black Belts, Green Belts and Yellow Belts (Snee, 2004; Antony et al., 2005a,b; Pande et al.,2000; Harry and Schroeder, 1999; Adams et al., 2003).

In the quest for business excellence, Six Sigma should be viewed more as a holisticbusiness strategy than as a quality program. While many organisations haveembraced numerous quality improvement programs, most fail to deliver the result thatSix Sigma consistently identifies as tangible and quantifiable increase in shareholdervalue. Six Sigma provides us with a common language as it reduces things to acommon denominator – 3.4 DPMO and sigma capability level, thus providing theability to benchmark ourselves against like production, processes, and practices.

Six Sigma has changed the outlook and practices of everyone in the organization bypermeating into departments, functional groups, and all levels of management. Thedecision making process is more objective, utilizing tools/techniques to identify theroot causes of defects at all levels of the organisation, thus generating real-worldresults (Snee, 2004). The five phase DMAIC methodology uses a collection of tools andtechniques, acting as logic filter to lead the team to the vital few factors affectingprocess outcomes.

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As compared to other quality initiatives, the cultural change in Six Sigmaorganisation is facilitated by key players known as Champions and Black Belts, whoact as agents to facilitate the change. These change agents harness the power ofknowledge to achieve enhanced performance, customer satisfaction and profitability,which is what Six Sigma is all about (Pyzdek, 2003; Brue, 2002). Companies that haveimplemented Six Sigma have achieved outstanding financial results and developeddisciplined, pragmatic plan and approach for improved financial performance andgrowth.

Six Sigma requires strong infrastructure and massive training. Deploying Six Sigmain an organisation requires new skills, and this primarily means training the BlackBelts and Green Belts who will guide and manage the improvement projects andprograms (Lee-Mortimer, 2006). Real benefit and return on investment in Six Sigma isconditional and should be deployed from the top down. The leaders of the companymust first understand the basics of Six Sigma and develop a company-specificdeployment strategy before building a Six Sigma infrastructure and beginning BlackBelt and Green Belt training. Understanding of Six Sigma should include not only itsvalue as a quality improvement methodology but also as a management and leadershipstrategy and methodology supported with a variety of tools/techniques. The measureof success for an investment in Six Sigma should be based on the successful completionof projects that give significant business value and the results obtained from thoseprojects.

A company can start with Six Sigma deployment by identifying a manageablenumber of critical projects that are top priority for the organisation and can besuccessfully completed within few months (two-five months). This will involve fewerresources and can win top management commitment and faith in the initiative. Oneshould focus on type of business, complexity of processes, availability of resources anddevelop an organizational infrastructure required for the company. It is not necessarythat for large organisation having 1,000 employees, there should be 100 Black Belts or300 Green Belts. The rule of thumb is that the mature Six Sigma organization willdevelop about 1 per cent of its work force as full-time Black Belts, although it is notuncommon to start with about 0.5 per cent (Keller, 2005). In this way, the deployment iseffectively scaled based on the number of employees. Company culture, organizationalstructure and facility location may also influence the number of Black Belts. Forexample, Black Belts may be selected so that the needs of each facility, or each segmentof the business, are adequately met.

Six Sigma demands massive training costs and additional effort has becomeanother misconception among many employees in the service sector. It is true that SixSigma requires some investment at the outset for training the most talented people inthe organisation and converting them into the so called “change agents”. However, thebenefits obtained from Six Sigma implementation outweigh the investment costs(Antony et al., 2006).

Since SMEs face constraint in training and deploying Black Belt to full timeprojects, it is advisable for SMEs to collaborate or develop some sort of consortiumwith local universities and get their best people trained up as Yellow Belts and WhiteBelts to tackle their day-to-day problems. Academic institutions should help SMEs tomeet their customer or stakeholder needs and assist them in creating value for theirkey customers. This will ensure development of stable, long-term and cost-effective

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relationship between the organization and academic institution. The training shouldfocus on how to select the right projects and how to form the right teams so that thecompany’s limited resources are effectively utilized.

Six Sigma is not cost effective. Six Sigma is a powerful “weapon” for deliveringbusiness improvement and many businesses are naturally drawn by the continualreports of its ability to help companies generate huge cost savings, customersatisfaction and improved profitability (Lee-Mortimer, 2006). Six Sigma has beenlaunched all over the world and many companies have testified to its pivotal role intheir success (Hutchins, 2000). Six Sigma business management strategy has beenexploited by many world class organisations such as GE, Motorola, Honeywell,Bombardier, ABB, Sony, to name a few from the long list and resulted in billions ofdollar of bottom-line savings (Snee, 2004; Antony et al., 2005a,b).

The reason of Six Sigma’s popularity in the business world is because manycorporations have seen how Six Sigma generated substantial return on investment inits implementation (Szeto and Tsang, 2005). It is reported that the savings achieved byMotorola reached $1 billion in 1998 and $16 billion in 2005 (Ingle and Roe, 2002; Brettand Queen, 2005). Dow Chemicals, which implemented Six Sigma on a corporate-widebasis in 2000, achieved its target of $1.5 billion in cumulative EBIT (earnings beforeinterest and taxes) gains by the end of 2002 (Motwani et al., 2004). Volvo Cars inSweden have generated over 55 million euro to the bottom line from Six Sigmaprogramme (Magnusson et al., 2003).

Sustainable merits of Six Sigma in the twenty-first centuryAbout 20 years have passed since the birth of Six Sigma in Motorola. Now theimportant question is “Is Six Sigma sustainable in the twenty-first century? Howlong?”. We believe that Six Sigma is quite sustainable, and will last quite for a longtime. The reasons are already stated in explanation of “myths demystified” section.Besides the reasons mentioned, we want to add two more important aspects of SixSigma as follows.

Six Sigma provides bottom-line benefits and customer-oriented managementLinking customers to continuous improvement of products and services is a keyresponse by world-class companies, which are employing Six Sigma. In manyorganizations, the quality improvement initiative is driven by the voice of customers orby the latest managerial issues (Peterka, 2005). Projects selected for investment shouldbe aligned with the customers needs and should have the potential to significantlyimprove the bottom-line. Organisations embracing Six Sigma can achieve betterquality and efficiency in the flow of information and interaction between people,especially interaction with customers. Six Sigma identifies the voices of customers andmaps it in the form of matrix (cause and effect matrix) or house of quality (qualityfunction deployment).

One of the greatest benefits of Six Sigma aside from improving product-to-markettimes is how it engages employees and customers in greater dialogue in a way thatboth energizes and unites the company. Problems are analysed, and solutions areimplemented not only between the business and its employees but also between thebusiness and its customers. A shared language develops focusing on customer goalsand metrics (Henderson and Evans, 2000).

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Six Sigma matches well to knowledge-based information societyThis twenty-first century is often called knowledge-based information society, andknowledge management is very important for any organization to survive in thiscentury. In knowledge management the CSUE cycle (Park et al., 2005) is recommendedjust like the DMAIC cycle in Six Sigma. The CSUE cycle is creating and capturing,storing and sharing, utilization, and evaluation. It means that knowledge should becreated or captured at the beginning, and then it should be stored and shared. Next, itshould be utilized for process improvement, and then it should be evaluated for furtheruse later.

The DMAIC cycle can be practically useful for knowledge management, and it canbe linked well with the CSUE cycle as follows.

. Define – fact finding.

. Measure – data gathering.

. Analyze – information creation and capturing.

. Improve – knowledge sharing and utilization.

. Control – knowledge maintaining and evaluation.

We believe that Six Sigma matches well to knowledge management, and this is one ofthe reasons why Six Sigma may last long in this century. Six Sigma will be evolved inseveral different dimensions in the future. Definitely Six Sigma and knowledgemanagement can be combined, and so-called knowledge-based Six Sigma (Park, 2003)can be one direction. Similar cue may be taken from Man (2002) to integrate Six Sigmawith lifelong learning for the “adult learners” within their organization and personallives. Man (2002) draws a parallel between the characteristics and norms that define anadult learner with the DMAIC methodology of Six Sigma. Six Sigma can be used togenerate the triggers that induce learning and the creation of new technologies.However, single loop type of learning with a focus on technical aspects and problemsolving should be avoided (Savolainen and Haikonen, 2007). More focus should be onlinking the Six Sigma initiative to enhance the learning cycle of employees.

Agenda for future researchSix Sigma, a systematic framework for quality improvement and business excellence,has been widely publicized in recent years as the most effective means to combatquality problems and win customer satisfaction (Goh, 2002). However, someresearchers have argued that the focus of Six Sigma has been too narrow, theresearch not being well developed, and too much research has been focused ondescriptions of practice rather than on theory development that is of use to managersand scholars.

Here, academia can play a critical role in bridging the gap existing between thetheory and practice of Six Sigma. It has been observed that very few universities in UKand rest of Europe are engaged in teaching and research on Six Sigma. This needs to bechanged in the future so that collaborative Six Sigma projects between the academicand industrial world must be established in both engineering and business schools. SixSigma has made a huge impact on the industrial world, but its impact on the academiccommunity is limited. It will therefore be incumbent on academic fraternity to carry outwell- grounded research to explain the phenomena of Six Sigma. The academic world

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has indeed a crucial role to play to bridge the gap between the theory and practice ofSix Sigma and to improve the existing methodology of Six Sigma (Antony, 2008).

The role of Six Sigma in promoting the concept of statistical thinking for bothengineers and business leaders is imperative. Statistical thinking – consisting of coreprinciples such as process, variation and data – may be used to create a culture thatshould be deeply embedded in every employee within any organisation embarking onSix Sigma programmes.

Some of the emerging research trends of Six Sigma include: integration of Six Sigmawith lean manufacturing, agile manufacturing, quick response manufacturing, andtheory of constraints; development in new application areas such as healthcare,finance, sales, human resources, software engineering; integration of Six Sigma withother quality improvement initiatives such as ISO 9001:2000, and EFQM ExcellenceModel; selection of Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) strategy over Six Sigma – based on anumber of variables such as risk, technology, customer demands, time, cost andcomplexity; tailoring the existing Six Sigma DMAIC methodology for SMEs; therelationship between Six Sigma and organisational culture and learning; integration ofeco-effective design into the DFSS processes to foster healthy and prosperousconditions for humans and ecological systems by reusing materials and components innatural biological or technical cycles; integration of DFSS with lean thinking, may becalled as “Design for lean Sigma”.

There is a paucity of literature on Six Sigma Project Selection, a topic that goesunnoticed in most organisations, and different techniques or methodologies that can beused for project selection, e.g. analytical hierarchy process (AHP), pugh matrix, failuremode and effect analysis (FMEA), quality function deployment (QFD), projectprioritization matrix, fuzzy logic, etc. The results from the informal poll conducted byPande et al. (2000) identified project selection as the most critical and most commonlymishandled activity in launching Six Sigma. The success or failure of Six Sigmadeployment in a business process hinges on selecting projects that can be completedwithin reasonable time span (four to six months) and will deliver tangible (quantifiable)business benefit in financial terms or customer satisfaction (Antony, 2004a,b).Identification of high-impact project at the initial stage of programme will result insignificant breakthrough in rapid timeframe. This is another area, which needs animmediate focus for continued development of Six Sigma.

Six Sigma will keep on building its momentum in almost all type of industries,irrespective of the size and turnover, with no signs of giving up in the immediatefuture. The challenge for all organisations is to integrate Six Sigma into their corebusiness processes and operations rather than managing it as a separate initiative. Inour opinion, Six Sigma will continue to grow as a powerful management initiative forachieving and sustaining operational and service excellence. It might evolve into a“new package” when it fails to achieve significant returns to the bottom-line. However,the sound principles and key concepts of Six Sigma will stay with it for many years. Infuture, the Six Sigma toolkit will be enriched by the continuous emergence of newuseful tools and techniques, especially in the software, finance and healthcareapplications. Authors believe that organisations developing and implementing SixSigma strategy should not view it as an advertising banner for promotional purposes.

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Concluding remarksOrganisations that implement Six Sigma have benefited from it in three major ways:reduced defect rate; reduced operational costs; and increased value for both customersand shareholders (Antony, 2008). Six Sigma has been part of our business lexicon andhas maintained momentum for more than a decade (Snee, 2004; Noble, 2007). It is nowmore than hype; it is a recognized methodology for solving process and quality relatedproblems in modern organizations (Antony, 2008). The interest in it is still very strongwith lot of air left in its sail and no signs of letting off. This may be attributed to thefact that over the past decade Six Sigma has shown great flexibility and bottom-linebenefits in its application beyond its root in manufacturing. Six Sigma like otherbusiness initiatives can become fad in the eyes of the management team if notimplemented correctly. A review of literature on the critical success factors (CSFs) ofSix Sigma explicitly states that commitment and support from top management ismost important for its successful deployment as well as sustaining the improvementachieved from its implementation (Antony and Banuelas, 2002).

The answer to the question “Is Six Sigma a passing fad?” is clearly no. Six Sigma isneither a fad nor just another quality initiative. It is a “way of life”. It is a businessstrategy based on objective decision making and problem solving, relying onmeaningful and real data to create actionable goals, analyzing root cause(s) of defects,and thus suggesting the ways to eliminate the gap between existing performance andthe desired level of performance. Becoming a Six Sigma organization means embracingthe fundamentals of statistical thinking (an area that need to be further explored):

. All work occurs in a system of interconnected processes.

. Variation exists in all processes.

. Understanding and reducing variation are the keys to success.

The right Six Sigma training and information will help people to understand that SixSigma is significantly different from other quality improvement initiatives of the past.Six Sigma is about using common sense to make things easier rather than makingthings more difficult (Peterka, 2005). However, what will eventually determine whetherSix Sigma is viewed by businesses as just a passing management fad or not, largelydepends on the leadership and success of its execution. Management is responsible forthe success of Six Sigma teams, they have to provide the environment that is conducivefor the employee to succeed, i.e. make the time and resources available (Nest, 2003).Successful Six Sigma program are built on a solid organizational foundation. Theorganizational system and structure need to be clearly identified and communicated tothe entire organization to successfully implement Six Sigma. Setting up a successfulSix Sigma organization requires careful planning and training of employees. Employeeroles and responsibilities must be established and clearly communicated to all.

While Six Sigma methodology is experiencing widespread adoption among avariety of business and industry, there is an inherent drawback of its misapplication ifadequately trained personnel, with the proper foundational background, are notavailable. Under this contextual setting, academia has a critical role to play. Six Sigmalacks theoretical under-pinning and hence academics need to take up the responsibilityto bridge the gap in the theory and practice of Six Sigma. The article culminates withthe following quotes from Walters (2005):

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Six Sigma has similarities to quality programs of the past because it contains many of thesame ideas and philosophies that have been taught for years, but it is vastly different in scopeand complexity because it teaches practical method of achieving these ideas andphilosophies. Six Sigma not only tell us what to do, but more importantly how to do it.

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Further reading

Kumar, M. (2007), “Success factors and hurdles to Six Sigma implementation: the case of a UKmanufacturing SME”, International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage,Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 333-51.

About the authorsManeesh Kumar is currently working as a Third Year Doctoral Student with DesignManufacture and Engineering Management department at University of Strathclyde, UK afterthe successful completion of Masters in Research (Business & Management) from GlasgowCaledonian University in 2005. He received a B.Tech in Manufacturing Engineering in May 2004from the National Institute of Forging and Foundry Technology, Ranchi University in India. Heis currently pursuing his research into development of Six Sigma framework for implementationin UK SMEs. He has published over 14 referred papers and 14 conference papers in the areas ofSix Sigma, Lean, Taguchi Methods, Project Selection, Multi Response Optimisation, SupplyChain, and Artificial Intelligence. He has edited three conference proceedings on Six Sigma and isa co-author of a chapter in a book edited by Prof. Jiju Antony on “World Class Application of SixSigma”. Maneesh Kumar is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:maneesh28@gmail.com

Jiju Antony has joined the Strathclyde Institute for Operations Management (SIOM) as aProfessor of Quality Management and Deputy Director of Knowledge Exchange andCommercialisation. Professor Antony, Director of the Centre for Research in Six Sigma andProcess Improvement (CRISSPE) within SIOM, has published more than 150 refereed papers andfour textbooks in the areas of Design of Experiments, Taguchi Methods, Six Sigma, TotalQuality Management and Statistical Process Control. He has successfully launched the FirstInternational Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage in August 2004. Professor Antonyhas been invited several times as a keynote speaker to national conferences on Six Sigma inChina, South Africa, The Netherlands, Dubai, Greece, New Zealand, South Africa and Poland. Hehas recently chaired the First European Research Conference on Continuous Improvement andLean Six Sigma. He is on the Editorial Board of over eight International Journals and a regularreviewer of five leading International Journals in Quality, Operations and ProductionManagement.

Christian N. Madu is Research Professor of Management Science at Pace University, NewYork, New York. He is also co-editor of the International Journal of Quality & Reliability

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Management. His research interests are in environmental management, total qualitymanagement, and statistical applications.

Douglas C. Montgomery is the ASU Foundation Professor of Engineering and Professor ofStatistics at Arizona State University. He is an author of 16 books and over 175 technical papers.He is a recipient of the Shewhart Medal, the Brumbaugh Award, the Hunter Award, and theShewell Award (twice), and the Ellis R. Ott Award. He is the one of the Chief Editors of Quality &Reliability Engineering International, a former Editor of the Journal of Quality Technology, and amember of several other editorial boards. Professor Montgomery is a Fellow of the AmericanStatistical Association, a Fellow of the American Society for Quality Control, A Fellow of theRoyal Statistical Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, and an ElectedMember of the International Statistical Institute.

Professor Sung H. Park, a prominent scholar in Asia, has been actively involved in thepromotion and enhancement of quality and productivity in Korea since 1977. He has publishedmore than 40 books on statistics and quality management including three books in English; thefirst, titled Robust Design and Analysis for Quality Engineering (Chapman & Hall), and thesecond called Statistical Process Monitoring and Optimization (Marcel Dekker), and the thirdtitled Six Sigma for Quality and Productivity Promotion (Asian Productivity Organization(APO)). Dr Park graduated from Seoul National University, Korea, in 1968 with a Bachelor ofScience in Chemical Engineering. In 1970 he went to the USA to study Operations Research forhis Master of Science Degree, and Statistics for his PhD degree at North Carolina State University(NCSU). After graduating from NCSU in 1975, he went to Mississippi State University in order toteach statistics in the Business School as an Assistant Professor, and then returned to hiscountry, Korea, in 1977. Since 1977 he has served as an Associate Professor and then as aProfessor in statistics at Seoul National University. In 2000, he received the prestigious goldmedal from the President of the Korean Government for his contribution to quality managementin Korea. He is now the President of the Six Sigma Research Group in Korea. He has also servedas the Chairman of the Evaluation Committee for the National Six Sigma Award of the KoreanGovernment.

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